


acceleration!

by archaeologies



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
Genre: F/F, No Spoilers, anyway, at least i think thats the ship name i'm tired and i don, brief mentions of stuff that happen in canon, but like, dont ever want to google yugioh ships bcs they are Bad, roseknight, roseknightshipping - Freeform, set while aki is learning to ride
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 15:27:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12484800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archaeologies/pseuds/archaeologies
Summary: your heart holds a plethora of words just waiting for the right wind to let them out.





	acceleration!

**Author's Note:**

> for ansel

Rua points out all of the places that hurt the most if you land on them in a fall. He knocks on hard, plastic knee pads, and nods sagely.

“These are the the ones you definitely want to protect,” he says, “because knees are what let you walk. I always wear plasters on the back of my ankles too! It really hurts to get hit there.”

He moves on to his elbows after that, lifting his shielded, bony arm towards Aki’s face. “Elbows hurt too,” he continues, “and are important, but not as important as knees I think. I have a scar just here from where I fell off my skates, and this one,” he sticks his tongue out and contorts his arms so he can push up his sleeves and show Aki something a little above the elbow pad jutting under her nose, “is from falling off a regular bike! Like, with pedals! And it’s really nasty! So you have to be better protected if you’re learning to ride a D-Wheel!”

Aki forces a laugh, and fiddles with a strand of her hair. “I’ll be careful,” she assures him.

“Rua, honestly,” his sister is at his side in a heartbeat and tugging at the back of his shirt. “Learning to ride is probably stressful enough without you going on about everything that could go wrong!”

Rua grins sheepishly, and rubs the back of his neck. He laughs. “I’m just being helpful!” he states, before dropping his arm to his side, and pouting. “Which is more than you can say you’re doing, Ruka!”

“I’m helping far more than you are,” she pulls at the back of his shirt again.

“Oh, yeah? How?”

Ruka sighs. “I’m removing you from the conversation,” she explains, and, with a final jerk, she knocks Rua back enough that he stumbles away from Aki and her D-Wheel.

Jack’s input is more useful, in that he’s a world-renowned D-Wheeler, and so actually knows what he’s talking about, but he doesn’t do a good job of communicating how his techniques work, or explaining why he does them. He just executes a move swiftly, and tells Aki that that’s the right way to do it, and the best way to do it, and doesn’t offer much more. Aki thinks she can learn a little from watching, but her hands feel so small around her handlebars compared to Jack’s, and stretching her fingers to reach the buttons he indicates is hard and painful, and Wheel of Fortune doesn’t work _anything_ like any other D-Wheel Aki’s ever seen or ridden. She’s only just beginning to grasp the mechanics of her own, simple D-Wheel; she has no idea how Wheel of Fortune works, or how Jack can stand to use something so unconventional.

She understands the power of a name - a brand - however, so she puts it down to that, and thanks Jack regardless. After all, she is grateful for every bit of help she’s offered, and it means the world to her that she’s cared for this much. She just... She just can’t help but feel there’s someone else she would much rather be getting the help from.

...

She learns the most from Crow. His teaching style is, odd, she thinks, because it’s based around immediately treating her like an equal, when she’s clearly not. She can barely keep her balance on her bike, and Crow’s has flown across bridges and seas and skies. Gods have very literally fallen to Crow on his D-Wheel, while the only falling going on with Aki’s is when she brakes too suddenly and feels herself slip from the grooved vinyl seat she’s rooted herself to.

Acting like they’re capable of the same things gives Aki the room to simultaneously grow and push herself further than she thinks she would have alone. She isn’t just trying to tackle the basics right now; she’s doing everything she can to keep up with Crow the Bullet. It’s exhilarating, when it isn’t disheartening. There are moments when she’s absolutely amazed by how far she’s come, and there are, in equal (if not greater) measure, moments when she feels like giving up, because Crow has passed her and gone further.

He offers her a cold drink, and a quiet break, and tells her he was absolutely awful when he first picked up Riding Duels. “Got the hang of it eventually,” he shrugs, “but there was way too much to look at, at first. Used to rely entirely on autopilot. You know, technically I don’t even have a licence?” he jostles her, bumping his shoulder into her side. “And if I did, I absolutely would have lost it by now.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Aki nudges him back, a smile in her voice even if it can’t quite make her lips, “I know you have a licence.”

“Not like, a real one,” Crow scratches the back of his neck. “I didn’t take a test for it. And I really should have lost it by this point. And if I had taken a test, I would have failed.”

Aki can’t help but feel uninspired by the fact one of the best D-Wheelers she knows is telling her that he wouldn’t be able to pass the test she’s training for, but she doesn’t say anything.

In a softer voice, Crow begins again. “You’re good, is what I’m trying to say. I don’t know. I just wanted you to know we’re not that different. Well, I mean, we are different, but like, in terms of riding.” He stands up, and claps her on the shoulder. “Anyway. A few more laps around the course, and we’ll finish for today.”

...

Lessons with Yusei are the closest she gets to that feeling, that understanding, that knowledge that lies in the wind, the tingling on the side of raw cheeks and the sound of her hair and clothes flapping behind her. It’s salty tears in her eyes from riding too fast without a visor on and an ancestral ache all the way through her knuckles from gripping to stay on. It’s harsh, but gentle - a breeze and a gale. It’s lectures on stance and balance and posture, and it’s failing over and over again, but never losing the passion that made her start in the first place.

It’s hands on her hands, steadying her, gliding her across roads on two wheels and rooms on six; something sturdy, something permanent, but also something not quite there, not quite visible. It’s lighthouse signalling the way through the mist, and she’s a boat full of blind luck, putting all her faith in a beam she can barely see but desperately wants to believe is there.

Is the beam her potential? Her ability? Or is it the certainty that another pair of hands should be holding her like this, holding her more tenderly than this, guiding her to what she found in that unreachable, unreplicable momentum that she’s striving so hard to understand, to find again?

...

She’s checking the suspension when Sherry says, “Looks like you’re in your element,”, and Aki’s heart flatlines. Her hands, shielded in gloves that her fingers have moulded into a stronger skin, seem to simultaneously freeze and shake, but she pulls them out from underneath her D-Wheel, and pivots from her kneeling position to face her.

Sherry is awfully tall, from where Aki’s crouching. She feels her lips quiver, just for a second, and her gaze trembles. She pulls herself up to her full height.

Sherry seems more focussed on the D-Wheel than her. Stern, mossy eyes rake in every inch of it, and she places a hand on the side, casually. “I didn’t realise you were a D-Wheeler, Izayoi.”

“I wasn’t,” Aki gulps. “Your words reached more than just Yusei’s heart in that duel, Sherry.”

She rolls her gaze back towards Aki, and smirks. The lopsided flick of her lips sends Aki’s chest into a thunderous flurry, and her ribs rattle as her heart bounces off of them. Aki bites her own lips, and meets Sherry’s eyes, determined, steadfast. This is the reason she’s worked so hard, isn’t it? Because there are things she needs to tell Sherry that she can only say in that world of speed she was shown by her.

The hand that was on her D-Wheel brushes against Aki’s, and even through her gloves she feels lightning shoot through her veins. “Is that so, Izayoi?”

Sherry’s face is so close to hers that Aki feels her breath against her cheeks as she speaks. She swallows again. “Aki,” she insists, on an exhale.

The smug smile Sherry had been wearing widens and softens, as the other side of her mouth curls upwards. She grins, catlike, and repeats, “Aki.”

In response, Aki can only nod. The hand that had brushed against hers wraps delicately around her wrist, and Aki tears her eyes from Sherry’s to look at it, and check it’s really there - though the way her skin seems to pulse and grow from the epicentre of Sherry’s tender touch should really have answered that for her.

Sherry licks her lips. “Tell me what I said to you,” her voice is raspy, and her breath still dances lightly on the side of Aki’s face. Aki’s knees are knocking. She hopes it isn’t obvious. “Tell me what I said to you in that world of speed.”

Aki opens her mouth, but Sherry places a finger to it to stop her from speaking before she manages to get a word out, and shushes her. Her gloves taste like gum and faux leather, like the scent of polish, like the scent of varnish, like the tingling that hits the back of the throat when too much perfume is sprayed too close to the face, and Aki’s lips are on fire. Sherry trails her hand from Aki’s mouth down to her shoulder, and rests it there, lightly. Always lightly. Her touches are the moment before a feather fully hits the floor, before a spinning coin can grind itself to a stop. She’s constant, fluid, and yet static, strong, stationary.

She pushes herself closer to Aki’s ear, and whispers, “Don’t tell me now. Tell me when you come find me in that world yourself.”  

The pressure is off of her shoulders and her wrist in a fraction of a second, and Sherry is walking away before Aki can blink. She lifts a hand in the air behind her, a wave without turning back, and calls, “I look forward to our duel, Aki. I’m sure your heart holds a plethora of words just waiting for the right wind to let them out.”

Aki drops to her knees. She turns her attention back to her suspension. Except her attention isn’t really on her suspension, not yet, because she still needs to process everything that just happened, and her pulse needs to drop back to a manageable rate, and her face needs to break itself out of the shocked cast it became while Sherry poured words into her ears, but she’ll get back to her suspension soon. Really soon.

If it means she can speak to Sherry again, if it means she can let her duelling speak for her, she’s going to do anything she can to become the best D-Wheeler she can. There’s nothing that can hold her back anymore.

The encouragement she was missing has sewn itself into every inch of her, and Izayoi Aki is not going to slow down for anyone anymore.


End file.
